Context of 'August 2002: NATO General: Iraq Far More Difficult to Defeat than Afghanistan'

General James L. Jones, the four-star commander of the Marine Corps who will be taking over as NATO’s supreme allied commander, tells The Washington Times that toppling Iraq’s government and defeating its army will be much more difficult than it was to remove the Taliban. “Afghanistan was Afghanistan; Iraq is Iraq,” he explains. “It would be foolish, if you were ever committed to going into Iraq, to think that the principles that were successful in Afghanistan would necessarily be successful in Iraq. In my opinion, they would not.” The general suggests that a large force will be needed to successfully invade the country. [Daily Telegraph, 8/23/2002]

NATO Commander Gen. James L. Jones, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, says that the Taliban and al-Qaeda continue to profit from the sale of opium in Afghanistan. He says: “We’re losing ground. It affects the insurgency because there’s increasing evidence that a lot of funding goes from the narcotics traffickers to the criminal elements, to what’s left of al-Qaeda, to the Taliban and anyone else that wants to create mischief.” [ABC News, 9/21/2006]